Mankind is one. We are all brothers and sisters no matter what our class, caste, colour, creed or country. No matter what we look like, no matter how rich or poor we are, we are all brothers and sisters.
That is true whether you believe in the Bible, the Koran or in Western science.
The Bible and the Koran – the holy books of about half of mankind – say that we all came from Adam and Eve, the first man and the first woman. The races were not created separately but come from the same root. That means we share the same human nature. And even though the Bible was written long ago, you can read it now and see that men thought and acted back then just the same way they do now. Human nature has not changed. We all have the same heart.
Western science says that we all come from Mitochondrial Eve, a black woman who lived in Africa long ago. All of us, every single one. That means that we are all cousins – not as some nice idea we would like to believe in, but as a cold, hard fact found by men in white coats.
On Christmas Eve night in 1968 three men went to the moon, far from their families. And when they looked back they saw the earth rise above the moon, they saw the earth all alone, a jewel in the blackness of space, the home of their families, of everyone they loved, the home of all mankind.
I felt the oneness of mankind for the first time on Christmas Eve too, but not from the moon, but in a church. During midnight mass it came to me that people in North America, the Caribbean and South America were all doing the very same thing, all worshipping the same God in the same way at the same moment.
Malcolm X experienced the same thing but more powerfully when he went to Mecca:
During the past eleven days here in the Muslim world, I have eaten from the same plate, drunk from the same glass, and slept in the same bed (or on the same rug) – while praying to the same God – with fellow Muslims, whose eyes were the bluest of blue, whose hair was the blondest of blond, and whose skin was the whitest of white. And in the words and in the actions and in the deeds of the “white” Muslims, I felt the same sincerity that I felt among the black African Muslims of Nigeria, Sudan, and Ghana.
We were truly all the same (brothers) – because their belief in one God had removed the “white” from their minds, the ‘white’ from their behavior, and the ‘white’ from their attitude.
I could see from this, that perhaps if white Americans could accept the Oneness of God, then perhaps, too, they could accept in reality the Oneness of Man – and cease to measure, and hinder, and harm others in terms of their “differences” in color.
See also:
i missed this posting in all of the christmas rush. Thank you for so elloquently speaking to what I feel. I got little goose bumps while reading it.
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Wow, thanks for your feedback.
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I didn’t saw this post until today. It is very touching!
We (humans) will always find a way to segregate ourselves and create a “superior” group to dominate some weaker/more vulnerable other. It happened long ago to jews in Egipt; in the Crusades, where “christians” would kill to “spread the Gospel”; to dalits in India; to tutsis in Rwanda; to non-muslims in Darfur, etc…
Racism doesn’t exist just because “white people are evil” it is a consequence of mankind illness,overall.
What happened to tutsis was not a matter of skin color, they were all africans/blacks; in Russia war with Chechnya they were all whites. Yet we don’t learn from our history.
As a matter of fact the king who hunt jews down didn’t know the history behind egiptian kingdom, (if you’re not familiar with Josph story, search please.):
Exodus 1:8“Now there arose up a new king over Egypt, which knew not Joseph.”
Then he mistreated them.
Almost the same whites are doing to us now, but it will end some day.
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That reminds me of my favourite Christmas song:
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I agree with the first poster… I read this about a month ago and I did get chills…
To bad many people have a vested interest in putting black against white against brown against yellow..
As much as I complain about racism and the collect thoughts whites (and other races) have I believe we are one.
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This is my favorite post. I love Stevie too.
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Agree that this is a great post.
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Maybe this year around Christmas you should do a post on the song “Feed the World (Do They Know It’s Christmas)” by Band Aid:
There’s a world outside your window
And it’s a world of dread and fear
Where the only water flowing is the bitter sting of tears
And the Christmas bells that ring there are the clanging chimes of doom Not being dramatic or anything, are we?
Well tonight thank God it’s them instead of you That’s the right attitude!
And there won’t be snow in Africa this Christmas time You might want to notify the ski resorts in Morocco and Lesotho that even the famous ice cap of Kilimanjaro is mysteriously disappearing this December, along with all the other snow-capped mountain peaks. Oh, and the regular winter snowfall in South Africa is going to stop too.
The greatest gift they’ll get this year is life Nobody in Africa ever gives presents.
Where nothing ever grows Yup, nothing EVER GROWS on the whole continent. The continent that’s famous for its grasslands, rainforests, and wildlife.
No rain nor rivers flow Ever hear of the NILE RIVER? It’s kind of big and stuff. Oh, and there’s those 51 other rivers. Whoops. And those pesky RAINforests again.
Do they know it’s Christmas time at all? Presumably the 300+ millions of Christians in Africa do…
Someday at Christmas, fools won’t write songs,
Playing with words like kids smoking bongs…
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Human “races” evolved as an evolutionary adaptation to local climate–
average ambient temperature and average sunlight. Darker skins are
more resistant to certain forms of skin cancer resultuing from UV exposure;
lighter skins produce more vitamin D. Hence, people in tropical areas tend
to have draker skins; those in termperate areas lighter skins. Intellegence
has nothing to do with this adaptation. And the distinction between “races”
despite popular belief is blurry; for example the lips and noses of Ethiopians
are more like those of Europeans than those of West Africans.
Humans are their own worst enemies. All humans seem to have an “us and
them” mentality, and in groups (tribes, chiefdoms, nations) are intensely
territorial. Our weaponry has gone too far–the weapons we have now could
bring about our extinction very quickly. And every nation that possesses these (nuclear) weapons–the U.S., Russia, England, France, China, Israel, India, Pakistan, and North Korea–so far– contributes to this threat. The “us and them mentality is humanity’s undoing. Abandoning it is not just a matter
of morality, it is a matter of survival.
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